South Africa Police

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Police opened fire Thursday on striking workers at a South African platinum mine, leaving as many as 18 dead, according to authorities and news reports. South African police officials confirmed that lives were lost in the shootings, captured on graphic Reuters news service video and tweeted, but they didn't give casualty figures. There were conflicting news reports that 12 to 18 people had died. The gunfire came after police moved in to try to disperse workers after a week of violence at the mine involving workers from competing unions armed with machetes, sticks and spears.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- A police squad on Tuesday found four works of art believed to be among the five stolen this week from South Africa's Pretoria Art Museum, tracking them down in a church cemetery in Port Elizabeth, about 650 miles from the scene of the theft. News that the works had been found broke Tuesday on Port Elizabeth radio station Algoa FM , which reported the paintings were found undamaged under a bench. "Our dog unit of Port Elizabeth received information from an informer which led them to the Dutch Reformed Church in Sundridge Park.

In a major policy shift, General Motors said Friday that it is ending its sales of cars and trucks to the South African military and police, while continuing sales to other branches of South Africa's white minority government. At a press conference after the company's annual meeting here, Chairman Roger B.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Police opened fire Thursday on striking workers at a South African platinum mine, leaving as many as 18 dead, according to authorities and news reports. South African police officials confirmed that lives were lost in the shootings, captured on graphic Reuters news service video and tweeted, but they didn't give casualty figures. There were conflicting news reports that 12 to 18 people had died. The gunfire came after police moved in to try to disperse workers after a week of violence at the mine involving workers from competing unions armed with machetes, sticks and spears.

The South African government, further tightening its controls on the country's news media, gave the police authority Thursday to prohibit publication of anything they regard as a threat to security or public order. The new censorship powers are by far the most sweeping yet assumed by President Pieter W.

Police used rubber whips, tear gas and low-flying helicopters to disperse black picnickers at whites-only beaches near Cape Town on Saturday and broke up other anti-apartheid protests nationwide in the most concerted effort yet to quash a new campaign of civil disobedience.

Three days after the government imposed a national state of emergency to curb black unrest, terrorists struck with a car bomb that exploded Saturday night on Durban's crowded beachfront, killing two white women and seriously injuring at least 15 other people.

Cpl. Tobie van Rensburg scanned the eager crowd of black children. "We've got some land mines planted here," said the sandy-haired young man wearing the brown togs of the South African Defense Force. "And we want one of you to come in here and see if you can find them." A brave 11-year-old boy ventured gingerly onto the path, where imitation land mines were hidden beneath clods of dirt. A second boy followed, and a third.

Police arrested 538 people early Saturday in the Johannesburg area, bringing total arrests to more than 3,000 in a weeklong, nationwide anti-crime sweep. Police spokesman Pierre Louw said four of the 538 were wanted for murder. Others face charges ranging from robbery and illegal possession of guns or drugs to traffic offenses, he added. "The aim was just straightforward crime prevention," Louw said. He said no black guerrillas or political opponents of the government were held in the raids.

Swinging night sticks and wooden clubs, riot police on Sunday broke up a group of about 50 anti-apartheid protesters who defied a government ban by holding a political rally at a Johannesburg university campus. Several people were reported injured. The police, who were also armed with shotguns and semiautomatic rifles, had earlier erected roadblocks around the campus at the University of Witwatersrand, preventing hundreds of other activists from attending.

Convicted death squad leader Eugene de Kock confessed Tuesday to four terrorist bombings of anti-apartheid and church groups in London and South Africa during the 1980s but insisted that he acted under official orders at all times. The former police colonel also admitted a horrific litany of other offenses, including torching a Pretoria building with elderly nuns sleeping inside.

South African police identified a man they suspect is one of two serial killers involved in the deaths of about 40 black women in a wave of killings that have terrorized the nation. In a breakthrough, police released a photo of Moses Sithole, 31, who they said used six aliases, and said they were searching for him. They appealed to the public to turn him over to the authorities and not to inflict mob justice.

Police in Johannesburg denied a local newspaper report of a right-wing plot using German neo-Nazi mercenaries to assassinate President Nelson Mandela at his inauguration in Pretoria on May 10. The newspaper quoted a source as saying police investigated reports that right-wingers with bombs had been spotted on a hill overlooking Pretoria's Union Buildings.

Hundreds of black South African police officers marched through Johannesburg chanting "One settler, one bullet" and "Down with De Klerk." The march was organized by the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, which is aligned with the African National Congress. "We must not allow ourselves to be used to intimidate the masses in the elections," a union speaker said. South Africa's first all-race elections are scheduled April 27.

Police in Soweto township fired tear gas to disperse about 150 black children who staged a protest march over conditions in township schools on the eve of a planned takeover of three vacant white schools. The National Education Coordinating Committee said it planned to occupy the schools "as a last-ditch attempt . . . to find an interim solution" to South Africa's education crisis. Although apartheid laws have been repealed, schools remain segregated.

Mixing business and politics doesn't always make for good business or even good politics. But it sure can make for a wild ride in the South African marketplace. Consider the case of Zenzeleni Clothing, an unusual enterprise founded by a politically active black trade union, staffed with laid-off union workers and chasing a piece of the anti-apartheid T-shirt market. Back in January, Zenzeleni's chief executive, Glen Cormack, received a telephone order for 1,000 T-shirts with the emblem of the African National Congress and the words: "ANC Lives.

The mass funeral for 11 blacks killed by police in recent anti-apartheid protests erupted into another fierce battle here Saturday in South Africa's continuing cycle of violence. As they left the funeral in Guguletu, a black township outside Cape Town, some youths among the 5,000 mourners stoned policemen and soldiers deployed throughout the township, and the security forces fired back with tear gas, rubber bullets and birdshot.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- A police squad on Tuesday found four works of art believed to be among the five stolen this week from South Africa's Pretoria Art Museum, tracking them down in a church cemetery in Port Elizabeth, about 650 miles from the scene of the theft. News that the works had been found broke Tuesday on Port Elizabeth radio station Algoa FM , which reported the paintings were found undamaged under a bench. "Our dog unit of Port Elizabeth received information from an informer which led them to the Dutch Reformed Church in Sundridge Park.